Heroes of animation: Golden Wolf

Six studios joined forces for the London's Hero speed animation challenge - and we're profiling each of them. Today we look at Golden Wolf.

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Animators from across London have come together for a unique challenge at ZED, HP's pop-up studio for creative professionals in London's Soho.

Curated by New York-based Cut&Paste and powered by HP Workstations, the contest saw six studios take part in a speed animation challenge in front of a live audience. Each got just five hours to create a 10-second clip that shows a different stage of the life of London's first superhero - from baby to senior.

Studio profiles

We wanted to catch up with the teams involved, and find out what drove them to get up in public and expose their creative process for all to see. First up is Golden Wolf, a passionate and diverse animation production company based in Shoreditch, London.

We chatted to co-founder/creative director Ingi Erlingsson to learn more about the company...

Q: Why did you agree to take part in the London's Hero challenge?

Ewen, our art director, took part in a project called Animation Tag Attack a little while back and also used to compete in Secret Walls, so he's pretty familiar with the format.

In fact, we've all been fans of the Cut&Paste format over the years and this seemed like a good point to get on board with it, especially as we're keen to support animation events in London.

The NBA are among Golden Wolf's big name clients

Q: What's the biggest obstacle you expect to face?

The length of time you have. With design/illustration focused events you can do something pretty decent in 5-6 hours, but animation usually takes weeks or months to do, so you have to learn to work around that.

Q: What's good about working in London?

London is an amazing city for animation. Because of the huge amount of creative work that is produced here you get an influx of incredibly talented artists from all over the world. Getting to hang out and work with these guys is a privilege.

We can't really think of a downside to working in London: it can be pretty hard work at times, but it's full off great opportunities so it all feels worth it in the end.

Golden Wolf created a series of weekly animated stings for Rdio

Q: What are the main qualities do you look for in the technology you use?

One word, POWER. At the end of the day it all comes down to processor speeds, graphics cards, RAM etc. We're constantly trying to cut down render times and improve the speeds at which we can work, and processing power really is the key to that.

Q: What's your advice for people starting out in animation?

There really isn't any substitute for hard work. And having a good attitude goes a lot further than you might think.

Cast Software asked Golden Wolf to visualise their offering in a simple, fun way

Q: What are you most proud of?

The Cartoon Network 20th Birthday Music Video we worked on last year is a project that's pretty close to our hearts. Getting to animate some of the most iconic characters we all grew up with was an amazing opportunity. It got nearly two million views in the first couple of days after launching as well as going viral on sites like Reddit and Buzzfeed which made it even better.

Q: Who's your favourite superhero?

My personal favourite superhero is Batman, I'm sure the rest of the team would disagree, especially our producer Ant, who loves Iron Man. I like the fact that he's not an alien and he wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, he's just a badass rich guy that drives a Lambo and beats up bad guys. [Ed's note: we think he means Iron Man, not Ant]

Golden Wolf teamed up with WAM Paris on a spot for Ray Ban

Q: If you could have any superhero ability, what would it be?

If I could have any superpower it would definitely be the ability to fly!! It sounds cheesy but I don't really need super strength or invisibility, let along cobweb shooting out of my wrists.

Q: What qualities does London's first superhero need?

He's got to have some sort of black cab hailing powers, as well as a built in brolly, obviously.

Delivered in conjunction with ZED!

This content was produced in collaboration with HP & Intel as part of ZED - a Pop-Up Studio for the Creative Community held in Soho, London. For more information about ZED and any future events see here.